


Unfettered

by nixajane



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Gods, Magic, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-07 13:17:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nixajane/pseuds/nixajane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have a system: they catch him, and he escapes. It works perfectly for years, right up until the Avengers decide to try and cage him for good, and end up setting something free instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfettered

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [this marvelous prompt](http://norsekink.livejournal.com/8195.html?thread=15869955) over on norsekink, posted originally under the title _A Cage To Free You._

These mortals are getting somewhat tiresome. Loki has, for the most part, been enjoying their little games; but it always made for a tedious few hours when he was captured. Even his escapes aren't as much fun as they used to be. 

This time is even more irritating than usual, as Thor is obviously not present on Midgard, and he tends to provide most of the entertainment value of the Avengers. At least the restraints that have been spelled by Odin are growing weak with use. Loki's power works against them like water against rocks, and he can feel his magic trickling free. 

The trouble is that the mortals suspect that he is working his way past them. The last thing Loki needs is for them to get an upgrade from Odin. Odin is, admittedly, annoyingly powerful. There is no _stopping_ Loki's power, but Odin can lock it inside him for a time—a dangerous gamble, always, as the longer the magic stays inside of him, the more of it he has.

The two mortals in front of him, however, are just smart enough, and stupid enough, to cause trouble attempting to find some way to stop his power on their own. 

He watches Tony Stark and Bruce Banner move around the lab as he paces in his clear cage. They also understand little about prisons, it seems—better to keep your captives in the dark, really, rather than let them watch you plan. Years of acquaintance, and they have still not learned how dangerous it is to let him see even a semblance of their plans.

"What are you doing?" Loki asks, tone casual and a bit wry, as he leans against the glass wall. 

"Don't worry," Tony tells him, without looking up, "promise this won't hurt a bit." 

"It is not me that is in danger here," Loki says. He watches their actions warily. He has been on this planet long enough to recognize most of the equipment and know how it works, and he scans the readings that scroll past their screens. 

They are trying to build him a different kind of cage—a cage of signals and rays and interference. It would be amusing, if it weren't so dangerous. 

"Right, I forgot," Tony says. "You're a God. Invincible. Indestructible. Yadda yadda. Hulk took you out easy enough. Again." 

Loki's eyes slide to Bruce. "Perhaps, but that is the equivalent of the good doctor up against me as he is now," he says. "He is not the only one that hides a monster beneath some innocuous skin." 

"I don't think anyone would call you innocuous," Bruce says. 

"Well, it is all a matter of perspective, is it not?" Loki asks, throwing him a sharp grin. "I know what you attempt, and I suggest very strongly that you stop." 

"Yeah, not surprised you would say that," Tony says, looking over at Bruce. "Did you finish calibrating the nuclear isomer?" 

"We're all set," Bruce agrees, moving to another workstation. "Just let me double check the readings." 

"You are making a mistake," Loki says. "This will not stop me." 

"Then _why_ are _you_ trying to stop _us_?" Tony asks, as he leans over the counter, adjusting the settings on his equipment. 

"I would have the honor of killing you myself, rather than see you fall to your own stupidity," Loki says. "If you activate your little machine I cannot guarantee I can control it." 

"That's kinda the point," Bruce says. "We don't want you to control it." 

Loki glances back over at him, stepping back from the glass wall. "You should contact Thor," he says. "He might have the sense to talk you out of this." 

"Big brother's not around to save you this time," Tony says. "We're go in T minus 20." Tony grins up at Bruce. "Always wanted to say that." 

"You fools," Loki whispers, counting down in the back of his mind, the last seconds he has to gather his strength and then—

It is like the very opposite of his fall. Where there he found darkness and prophecy and _nothing_ , this is light and sound and matter filling every single space. It catches in his throat and his fingers and his heart; all that energy, all the magic in this space—all of it caught like a firefly in a jar, and nowhere for it to go but for one place. 

Loki. 

He feels it catch inside of him and then explode out, his restraints falling away to dust as half of the roof gets ripped straight away. Loki throws back his head as a scream tears from his throat, the jagged cry echoing through the lab as the walls start to crack along their sides. Thin sharp lines draw along the glass cage in strange spiraling designs, spider web thin, until nothing is left unbroken and it bursts outwards all at once. 

Loki knows the very moment this strange little prison snaps. The magic rushes out and everywhere and then rushes back, all back to him like he's a magnet. It is power like he has never known, power strumming through every single vein, and when he finally looks up he sees those two would-be-Gods staring back at him in fear. 

Loki's glass cage and restraints have now shattered so thoroughly that they look like grains of sand, and he steps across their remains, not so much as a scratched. 

"How did you—" Stark, the one so rarely without words, stumbles for some kind explanation. He shakes his head. "Thor said—" 

"Thor understands nothing of my power," Loki says, and it is like it is not even him speaking, though they are his own words. "He does not know magic. What powers he has have been bound up in that hammer and given him by the All-Father. What powers I have are my own." 

Loki sees the green flames rising up along the fingers of his hands, sparking outwards in thin tendrils to burn up the computers and the equipment. This is him, this power, some ancient force he has long held down within him, suddenly set free. 

"And you cannot take them from me," Loki says. 

A quiet wind begins to circle through the lab, a tiny manufactured tornado. Loki's hair flies behind him as his pupils grow and spread, leaving two black holes in place of his eyes. The growing green fires surrounding them all give off no heat, and the temperature instead drops so low that Tony can see his next startled breath. 

Bruce surges forward, feeling the change starting. He can feel the Hulk trying to rip his way out, the one chance they might have at stopping Loki—but then Loki turns those depthless eyes on Bruce. 

"You will stay here, for I have no quarrel with the other," he says. Bruce gasps and clutches onto the counter, feeling the transformation reverse. It leaves him breathless and rattled and Tony moves to his side, gripping his arm to tug him behind. 

Loki steps forward, his vacant gaze focused somewhere very far away. "It is time you see what it is that I am." 

"We understand," Tony says quickly. "You've made your point." 

"You understand nothing," Loki says, and his voice echoes all through the room, then again inside of their heads. "I have fallen and been dragged down deep into the void where none should wander, and there I saw the universe laid out before me like a web—threads and choices and circles, inevitably closing in and crossing all the same paths. And there I was called The Ragnarök-Bringer, by those voices that lived there. They knew who I was, before it was who I was." 

Tony can hear shouts coming from behind the locked lab door, from atop their new custom sunroof. He does not dare to hope for rescue, because he's fairly certain there is no escape from this. The best he can hope for is that they stay on the other side of the door and out of Loki's sight. 

Loki grins like he knows exactly what he's thinking, like he knows exactly who is coming and what they plan to do when they get here; and it doesn't concern him at all. 

"You think to capture me? To chain or claim me?" Loki demands, stepping forward until he is inches away from them. "I am not mortal, nor am I immortal in any way you could comprehend. I _am_ , and the day I end is the day I end everything." 

"Look, Loki, you don't want to do this—" Tony starts. 

"You think I do not know mercy?" Loki questions, lowering himself just enough their eyes meet. "I have long been showing you mercy. You have not seen cruelty from me yet, and you should pray that you never will." 

Loki's eyes slowly return to their usual startling green, and the wind lessons until it feels like a simple breeze. "I did warn you," he says, in mock-politeness, before grinning suddenly. 

It's a grin that Tony has seen a hundred times before; a smile like Loki knows something they don't. Except now he _knows_ , he knows what's behind that smile, and it scares the hell out of him. 

The green flames burn brightly for another moment, rushing up all at once to engulf Loki completely, and then the flames and Loki are both gone, leaving nothing salvageable of their research in their wake. 

"Jesus fucking Christ," Tony cries. "Did that really just happen? How the hell did Thor not warn us about _that_?" 

"We may have…underestimated him, slightly," Bruce agrees. 

"Jesus fucking Christ," Tony says again, collapsing to sit on the floor. 

Bruce sits down beside him. "I'm pretty sure that's not who Loki was suggesting you pray to," he says.


End file.
